Field Guide · First Edition · 2026
Clearanceto Wealth
How to break into defense contracting, earn a security clearance, and build real wealth in tech. Starting from wherever you are standing right now.
68 pp / 16 ch
How to break into defense contracting, earn a security clearance, and build real wealth in tech. Starting from wherever you are standing right now.
I worked retail for eleven dollars an hour. I was not lazy and I was not stupid. I simply had no idea that there was an entire industry paying six figures to people with one certification, a little bit of experience and a background check, because nobody in my life knew it either.
The average cleared technology professional in the United States earns $126,125. Roughly double the national median. Overseas, the same work regularly clears $200,000 with housing, food, and transportation paid for and most of the federal tax removed.
That is not a pitch. It is published compensation data, and it is cited in the guide so you can check it yourself.
Here is one offer taken all the way to the bottom line. A systems role in South Korea, single filer, domiciled in a state with no income tax.
Both columns land on the same number. A $160,000 offer overseas leaves you
exactly what a $272,000 salary leaves you at home.
Figures use 2026 federal brackets, the $132,900 foreign earned income exclusion,
and a maxed traditional 401k. Illustrative, and fully shown in the guide.
Three sections. Getting in, where the money is, and how to keep it. No filler, no motivational padding, and nothing else to buy at the end.
I would rather lose the sale than waste your money.
The simplest way to stop needing a job is to invest the gap between what you earn and what you spend, and let it compound. That is the whole mechanism. What makes cleared tech unusual is how wide it lets that gap get, and how fast.
Both of these are real careers in this field. Domestic cleared work pays roughly double the national median in a city you choose. Overseas pays more and covers your living costs on top of it. Plenty of people do one, plenty do the other, and plenty do a few years of one and then switch.
This calculator is free and there is nothing to enter but your own numbers. Put in your age, how much you could save once working in cleared tech, and what you spend, and see how quickly this career could get you to the point where working becomes optional.
Uses 2026 federal brackets, the $132,900 foreign earned income exclusion, FICA at 7.65% up to the wage base, and the 4% rule for the wealth target. Overseas assumes a no-tax domicile and a contract covering housing, food, and transport. Illustrative only. The full breakdown, and how to actually get there, is in the guide.
No. Chapter 2 covers both routes in detail. The military path is faster because the government sponsors and pays for your clearance, but the civilian path works and it is the one most readers take. It adds roughly twelve to eighteen months.
No, and I am emphatic about this. Cleared technology jobs exist in all fifty states, and the average cleared professional at home earns roughly double the national median. Chapter 8 is written entirely for people who want the domestic version. Overseas is an accelerator, not a requirement.
It is written for you. Security+ requires no prior technical experience and is designed to be someone's first certification. The guide starts from zero and includes the free study resources I would use if I were starting today.
Chapter 13 is a case study of exactly that person. He studied after the kids went to bed, took a help desk job for eighteen months, and had his house paid off four years later. Clearance eligibility does not consider age.
Some of it, scattered across five years of threads and mixed in with a lot of confidently wrong advice. What you cannot find assembled anywhere is the sequence, the tax and domicile chapter, a full scrubbed cleared resume, and pay bands by country with sources attached. That is what you are paying for.
Email support@clearancetowealth.com within thirty days.
Ask me anything about the guide, the clearance process, certifications, or whether this path fits your situation. You do not need to have bought anything. I read everything that comes in.